Abstract

Improving the experiences of first year math students of the Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment is a complicated, challenging yet intriguing problem. The complexity of the problem is the growing number of first year online courses in the University of the South Pacific operated from 12 member countries isolated geographically in the Pacific. This paper explains the impact of new at-risk intervention programmes on mathematics courses at different modes. The Science faculty has not implemented any definite measures for at-risk students. However, the faculty has piloted activities in maths courses especially face to face courses. After this implementation the pass rates compared to the past pass rates has improved which shows the benefits of the at-risk intervention programme. However, the at-risk programme seems not to have benefitted the online courses. The strengths and challenges of these adaptive interventions are highlighted with interpretations and recommendations.